Think of the Children

The recent stories of the young transgendered children have received a fair amount of coverage in the press and in the blogsphere so I won't go into a huge amount of depth on the details as they are so widely available (though I guess of dubious accuracy). There are a few points I would like to make from my own perspective.

First of all, while it's possible the schools concerned had little notice about these pupils, if the reports are true regarding how they handled things then they really do need to have a rapid re-think of their approach. You can't simply ban the other kids from being mean and nasty and hope that works, it simply won't - I was bullied at school (not directly trans-related in my case) and I doubt such directions would have stopped the imbeciles involved from picking on me.

Even worse such an approach sends the wrong message to those slightly more thoughtful and compassionate children (and parents) who would benefit from having a little more explanation and information so they can begin to understand and maybe even support what these kids are going through. The 'newspaper' (I use the term loosely) articles did nothing to redress the balance either, taking the sensationalist angle rather than doing some decent research and attempting to educate the masses in the ways of understanding and tolerance.

Which brings me to the supposed reactions from the parents of other children at the schools concerned. These seem to have been largely expressed as shock and the underlying concern that their own kids may make similar choices. As we all know transgenderism is extremely contagious and can be passed on to others so make sure you keep well away from these children in case you catch anything! Sound silly? I would bet the idea has crossed the minds of some of the parents.

If you can't consider the trauma that these children have gone through, and are going to have to deal with for the rest of their lives, and you can't appreciate their suffering and feelings as human beings then you're a pretty pathetic individual yourself. Just because you may think of someone as 'weird' or 'not normal' does not mean that aren't human and are devoid of feelings, quite the contrary, they probably have an over-abundance of the latter.

If derogatory labels are the best you can come up with then it's maybe you that has the problem not them. For once I would agree with the mantra "think of the children"; don't persecute people so young and certainly don't teach your own offspring such intolerance and bigotry.